Having now completed Assassin’s Creed Rogue, there are some sthing I should probably mention. First of all, if you love the series and see this one at a great price, you should snag it. In spite of what I found to be a few mechanical flaws like Shay freezing (though for just a moment) in the middle of running, it’s quite playable overall. Slight differences in the controls of your ship, and a puckle gun that’s slightly more difficult to aim than it’s predecessor are hardly deal breakers, at least for me. Though the “animus” sequences in AC games have never been my favorite part of the story, I liked this one even less, as it featured a caustic “handler” at Abstergo entertainment, and frankly my “subject” never really did much.

But sailing a fighting ship through river passages, fishing for whales in deep waters, and of course, the naval combat make up for any minor flaws in the game. The story is more compelling than most games out there in my opinion, and watching the inner struggles of an assassin as he seeks to find his place in the universe makes for quite a theatrical experience.

As always, there is plenty to do in the open world environment of “Rogue.” I always like to hunt early on in the game, so I can upgrade things like health, my weapons and ammunition pouches. But that’s the fun of these games in a nutshell: you get to, in large part, choose what you do and when. Though you must “progress further in the story” to achieve certain goals, there is plenty of other fun to be had until you get there.

The settings are quite beautiful, from small, very out of the way outposts, to the already bustling lower Manhattan, and as always, there is much to be done to keep you busy. The Assassin’s Creed games are built in a fashion that requires only that the missions be done, so how many of the peripheral things, like hunting, naval warfare, intercepting pigeons who carry messages for the assassin’s, you wish to do is largely up to you. You don’t even need to upgrade weapons if you don’t wish to, and most missions can be accomplished with those items you are issued from early on in the game.

If you played Black Flag and completed all 4 of the legendary ship challenges in the game, you’ll have been automatically received the elite ram, which allowed you to plow into enemy ships and cause enormous damage. The problem? There was little left to do at that point in the game, so you couldn’t do much with your new toy. In “Rogue” you’ll achieve that goal much earlier, and be able to use this upgrade to crash your way around the North Atlantic and beyond.

Overall, it’s a good game. It isn’t out of this world like “Black Flag” or “Brotherhood.” There are a few glitches, some changes I wasn’t all that fond of, and perhaps a bit too much wilderness for my personal tastes. But you get to sail a fighting ship and compete in naval battles, sneak up on bad guys and silence them stealthily, engage in action packed swordplay worth of any other game like it, and the story of “Rogue” is worth the price of admission alone.